1.1 General Concepts

1.1.1 Hardware, Software, Information Technology

1.1.1.1 Understand the terms hardware, software, Information Technology (IT).

Hardware

• The term hardware refers to the physical components of your computer such as the system unit, mouse, keyboard, monitor etc.

Software

• The software is the collection of instructions which makes the computer work.

For instance, when you type in words via the keyboard, the software is responsible for displaying the correct letters, in the correct place on the screen. Software is held either on your computer’s hard disk, CD-ROM, DVD or on a diskette (floppy disk) and is loaded (i.e. copied) from the disk into the computers RAM (Random Access Memory), as and when required.

Information Technology (IT)

• This is a general term which relates to the use of computers as an aid to

creating and maintaining data, i.e. information. IT is related to all aspects of managing and processing information, especially within a large organisation. Computers are critical to managing information, and computer departments within large organisations are often called IT departments. Alternative phrases are IS departments (Information Services) or MIS departments (Management Information Services). People working with computers within large companies will often refer to their job, as “working in IT”.